How to PREVENT Anime Figures from Yellowing as They Age

this Louis is almost 15 years old Asuka almost 10 years old so what does an anime figure look like after 10 years of Aging well they might turn very yellow and discolored just like this box of Lou over here so what can you do to prevent [Music] it hi and welcome back to the channel Steven W here with a topic I'm sure a lot of you are curious about and also you have this fear like yeah I spent a lot of money on my figures $200 $300 on some of these high-end skill figures what will they be like after 10 years after 15 years because you adore them so much you don't want them to degrade into basically garbage great plastic right you don't want that to happen and these two figures over here I know I'm just trying to scare you over here right do anime figures turn yellow over time now these two boxes of figure do appear to suggest that to be the case I mean look at this Asuka I can tell there is a yellow tint over the Box all over and the same can be said for this figure of Lou yeah this box looks like trash already I know but I think I have done a fairly good job preserving this thing for 15 years right it is actually a wonder that the Box still exist today and is still intact in one piece okay so it isn't as bad as it looks but only provided you know how to take care of the figures right now let me unbox this figure for a second I'm going to insert more V uh more videos going forward in this video so okay as you can see the upper half of this figure is very yellow right but fortunately the figure is fine oh all right let's put put the base aside for a second as you can see very yellow plastic right I'll get to this bit in a second what happens over here and you see the figure is almost normal color maybe there is some discoloration but I couldn't tell because they are not white color Parts over here but when you look at her skin and then the white color part of her mid apron everything looks fine but I think the back of the hair over here is ever so slightly yellowish right yeah I think there is a slight yellow discoloration on the hair but I'm not too bothered with it for a 15-year-old figure she looks great from the front right and yeah I brought this figures foot pack one of them back then anyways she still looks fine and yeah she can still stand with that broken foot pack or maybe I can modify the base a little and include by insert my own metal rod but that is besides the point okay now we shall put this Lou aside let's take a look at Asuka right okay so with Asuka it is the same thing over here the box has turned really yellow this is almost yellow all over the place but when we open it up right this figer is in a lot of better condition a lot better condition that than Louis over there the colors are all almost intact well preserved colors over here right okay so the skin and everything even this Sparrow Head over here everything looks fine the colors are great if you are a veteran figure collector you might be very familiar with this word or the name of this chemical by now a plasticizer right so what is a plasticizer plasticizer is a chemical found in pretty much every single PVC figure made out there perhaps not resin but PVC figure ABS figures they are all found in this figure regardless of of which brand and which product line nids figmas they have them as well but we'll get to that in a second okay so with skill figures which is the main focus of this channel plastic sensor is a chemical which is incorporated into the material itself PVC material to make sure that it does not break too easily to maintain that elasticity to a certain extent like for example this hair stren over here see yeah the hair is slightly flexible unlike resin resin is like really stiff really solid unless we are talking about rubber resin right standard resin is really hard and brittle and breaks easily this ha strand if it was in resin it wouldn't bend like this right if I Tred to bend it it would just break off try to imagine the difference between plastic and glass or ceramic and that is the difference between uh plastic which is the case for PVC and ceramic for the case of resid okay so PVC is a lot more flexible and and you could even say that PVC figures are harder to damage compared to resin figures right like a very mild impact a very light knock on the figure it won't break the figure even sometimes to drop a simple figure like this on the floor sometimes they won't break at all you might scratch it but it won't break and that is the beauty of PVC right the problem with plasticizer is that it is a volatile liquid which means it evaporates very easily let's talk about water right water boiling point 100 de C and when a water is boiling you get this steam coming up right raising Rising into the air and PVC figures in general when you expose it to higher environmental temperatures like for me living in a country which is really hot and humid 365 days a year we don't have four seasons over here now this kind of weather we have our daily temperature over here Outdoors is 30 plus de C or higher than that so it is really brutal on anime figures it is the one of the worst possible climates you can have for any figure collector right but we are used to it and the problem isn't just outdoor temperatures since you don't put your figures Outdoors the thing is that as long you are not turning on your air conditioner which no one keeps it on for 24 hours a day because your electricity build would be really Skyhigh all this has an effect on anime figures regardless of whether your figures are inside a box or displayed outside the Box on your shelf in a glass cabinet doesn't matter there is an effect to a certain extent and this higher this elevated surrounding temperature will make this plasticizer material evaporate out from the figure right like the figure is it is kind of emitting some kind of gas if you buy a brand new figure sometimes you open it right you open the box to take out the figure and then give it a smell ah that fresh brand new figure smell smells really nice that is plasticizer smell right don't get don't get addicted to to sniffing these things yeah that really nice uh that really nice new figure smell you get when you open a new figure in box or you know when you buy a new car you get inside and then you get this new car smell that is also plasticizer yes yeah you see plasticizer is a really volatile gas lighter than our air so it will just evaporate out from the figure and then rise up in the air and disappear like that most of the time does not affect us figure collectors even if you had a 100 figures in the room as long you open a window and air out to your room so that there is no weird smell being retained in the room yeah there is no issue in general the problem comes when there are a number of figure collectors out there where they try really hard to preserve the market value so-called market value Val of their anime figures because they think it is a really rare item nobody sells it anymore so they want to maintain the condition of the figure to be as pristine as possible they will never take the figure out from the box maybe they open it once to inspect the condition and then they put it back in the box and that is it the figure is locked up in the Box for many years to come right some don't even open the box you see some people they are what we call misb collectors where they collect figures with the Box complete sealed they never open it even once and those are some of the saddest figure collectors you will ever meet because they spend a lot of money on the figures yet they don't try to take the figure out and enjoy the figure themselves they keep it locked up in the box which is really set all in the name of market value right so when all this plasticizer gas are trapped inside the box with nowhere to escape what will happen yeah they will condense imagine you have a cattle a pot of water you boil it to boiling temperature right on the gas stove and then you immediately keep it inside a flask or even a glass jar what do you see yeah this boiling hot water will have steam coming out and then it will go all the way up to the top of the jar the lead the cover and it will condense over there forming water droplets the same exact thing is happening to anime figures and plasticizers you see this gas plasticizer gas coming out from the figure with nowhere to escape it will condense somewhere where they will condense on the surface of this plastic framework which is best case scenario or worse they condense on the surface of the figure itself right so you get this phenomenon where people call it anime figures sweating right when you touch the figure it is very oily that is plasticizer coming out from the figure with nowhere to escape so it settles on the surface of the figure itself so what can you do about this right there are three stages actually the first stage is the figure becomes Oly but no discoloration no nothing else just that it feels really Oily to the touch that is early stage and the figure can be saved very easily was the figure with soap water even dishwasher detergent water diluted of course can be used to wash anime figures right and you will get we of that all very easily problem solved the second stage is that when there is not only heat which is a warm environment but also humidity once again an enemy to anyone living in a country which is really hot and humid right like my country so when the humidity is present together with hot air that oily plasticizer becomes sticky right when you mix oil and water you try to imagine that they becomes uh really sometimes they don't mix and if they do you get this sticky mess same thing with plasticizers so when you figure we just the stage of being sticky that is really hard to clean you can still clean it like you need a mix of soap water uh maybe detergent dishwashing detergent that is diluted and sometimes you need toothpaste to yeah and a soft brush to actually brush the figure as much as you can but how do you clean an anime figure I think I will save that for another video in the future I need to prepare for it right I will do a tutorial and an advice on how to do that you can get R like maybe 70% sent of that stickiness but sometimes there is some residual that remains on the figure so you don't really want to reach this level and the final stage stage three after the stickiness that would be the yellowing Wing the discoloration when the figure turns yellow in is pretty much permanently damaged you can try your best to save the figure with all kinds of cleaning liquids commercial ones that are present in the market maybe some of them do work but to remove that yellow discoloration completely is nearly impossible so when when you discover of figures are already Oily to a certain extent start taking action and start cleaning them okay so what can you do to prevent this in the first place the answer is there is nothing can do to prevent it you can only slow down the process right this uh plasticizer coming out from the figure is a natural process it is always happening 24/7 no matter your room temperature or other environmental factors the question is how fast that process is place which you can't see your own eyes so the first thing you should do is don't lock up so the first thing you should do is don't lock up your figures in the boxes for a very long period I do understand some of you do not have the space to display your anime figures like not every single one of them you don't have the space just like I do at home so I don't display my figures I keep my figures in boxes but what you should be doing the very first step when you buy a new figure you know those plastic flums that are being inserted into the anime figure to prevent paint transfer if you have a removable head or a removable torso you can see a plastic FL being shoved in between remove all of it yeah remove all of the plastic fls those plastic flums do not have any place inside a figure box right they are meant to prevent paint transfer for example the figure that just came off a factory hot from the oven right just completed painting process and and uh clear coating process maybe the paint is not yet 100% dry but they still packaged the figure into a box so to prevent the paint from rubbing against each other you know different color Parts rubbing against each other and resulting in paint transfer to avoid that they insert the plastic flum which is very effective but once the paint has completely dried which is often the case the moment you receive your figures in the mail the paint should have been completely set already remove all of the plastic flums yeah remove all of it and the only exception I could think of where you might want to keep one or two plastic flums is when you buy a cast of a b figure right like you can remove the clothes of the figure and maybe we have a JK figure where she is wearing school uniform right and the underwear underneath is maybe brown color so sometimes that brown color underwear the brown paint will rub on the white color school uniform and you see all this brown stains on the shirt it is not nice to look at in those scenarios you don't have a choice you might want to keep on a plastic flum on the figure in case you choose uh to keep the figure in box right but other than those kind of examples remove all of the plastic fls because they are trapping the plasticizers that are evaporating out from the figure those plasticizers have nowhere to go they are trapped right and they will increase the likelihood of the plastic Sizer condensing on the surface of the figure making them very oily or sticky right if you at least remove those fls those plasticizer comes out but has nowhere to escape at least it would settle on this plastic surrounding the figure so this plastic will turn yellow maybe it is even oily right but at least it does not affect the figure too badly right which is why these Plastics are so yellow but the figure is not as badly affected because I remove all those plastic flams if I don't the figure would indeed turn yellow for sure and uh let me show you this one this is from Louis right as you can see the upper half of the plastic is very yellow the lower half is almost clear this is the best evidence yet where we have a figure placed like this right and the Box being uh kept up right like this yeah the plasticizer comes up from the figure and it moves upwards like Steam from water because it is lighter than air so all this plastic Sizer will settle on the upper half of the plastic and that is why the upper half is yellow not so much for the lower half right if you want to prevent your figure from turning yellow the best absolute best is to display it outside of the box which not all of us have the luxury of doing so especially when you don't have the space to display these figures because you want to keep the box and you also want to display the figure you need double the amount of space for each figure right if you insist on keeping the figure in the box as well there are a few precautions you can take to at least slow down the rate of evaporation of this plasticizer out from the figure this might sound crazy you want to consider putting a figures into the freezer and yes I do mean the freezer in the refrigerator at your home right so how do you do this actually if your figure if you have just taken out your figure from a box like this right and it feels oily or regardless of whether it is dirty or not it could be Dusty it could be oily or anything else make sure to clean it first and after you clean the figure you need to wipe it really dry like make sure it is really dry feel free to use a haird dryer without the highest heat setting just moderate heat or no heat feel free to use hair dryer make sure you dry the figure 100% then you move it into the cooler section of the refrigerator first which is the lower section right you don't want to move it directly into the freezer because a huge temperature difference from a warm environment to freezing cold temperatures it might damage the material the material might start might start to crack it might happen I have never experienced this before but it might happen so as a precaution when you change temperature for a figure surrounding temperature you should slowly transition not introduce a sudden change in temperature you move your figure to the lower section of a refrigerator which is normally 10° C like 4 to 10 celsus right and once the figure cools down you move it into the freezer section on top in total half half an hour is enough for each figure right so what this does is that it will stabilize the chemical composition inside this PVC material it will slow down the evaporation rate of the plasticizer which in which is inside the figure and when you take the figure out from the freezer you will notice the figure is harder and some flexible Parts become stiffer right yeah the properties of the PVC material has changed just from lowering the temperature and this will help in preserving the figure a bit but once you take the figure out from the freezer the figure might be wet because of condensation water droplets on the surface of the figure make sure you wipe it dry before displaying it or keeping at in the keeping back in the Box make sure to really dry it this is very important because if there is moisture plus plasticizer I told you already oiliness becomes stickiness which is a disaster right okay the next thing you can do to at least extend the shelf life of anime figure you want to preserve it better is to put silica gel packets inside your anime figure box right yeah even if your figure is inside a closed acrylic container or even an i deto glass as long the figure is inside an enclosed area be it a shelf or a figure box make use of silica gel packets it does help even just by a bit right so let me show you guys an example over here okay this is 3D printing filament right and for us people who do 3D printing silica gel is something we use pretty much every day so this is 3D printing filament and yeah this small packets of sand light thing you can find this in bottles of medicine uh Health supplements or even shoe boxes and buy a new pair of shoes you'll find these things this is what we call silica gel extremely cheap you can maybe find it from phes no buy lots of these and put at least one packet in every figure box you have if your figure is sitting inside their own boxes right very important because it will absorb humidity and water droplets from the air so in case the figure turns oily at least it turns oily instead of sticky right the next topic I would like to discuss regarding yellowing figures you might get this question from some people my figures have done yellow or sticky or oily after just two or three years being displayed openly like this one over here exposed Shelf with no enclosed box no enclosed case of anything displayed openly with free air flow and yet the figure becomes oily or sticky but my neighbor who is also a figure collector nothing happened to his anime figure so I disagree with the environmental factors playing a role with this it is just luck all the figure is just bad quality so how do I answer this question right the figure is just bad quality this sentence there is a partial truth to it but we get to that in a second you'll see every anime figure is different these two figures are by Alter but they are very different the materials used to make them a difference I mean this came out in year 2008 this is 2014 that that is 6 years in between and in that period of 6 years a lot of things could have changed in the process of making anime figures as well as the type of materials used to make the figure as long that friend of yours does not have the same exact figure as yours down to the release date itself right a figure that is out today and re-released two or three years later it might be a bit different in the material composition used as long they are not the same then the figure might react differently to your environment when being displayed all being kept in the box that that is all I can say if you collect both Nando and skills right if you paid attention uh the Nando figures they feel very rubbery in some way right I mean you just lightly touch the surface of the figure and then you try to bend it you try to test the material properties like how flexible they are how rigid they are do they feel solid or maybe the surface feels a bit softer to the touch you try to yeah try to feel the difference in material properties between nandroid and skill figure they are different nandos they are almost one 100% PVC almost and the material is very cheap like extremely cheap skill figures because well they are more sophisticated in a way some of them stand on only one leg this is standing on two legs some of them stand on only one leg and if these kind of figures are made of only pure PVC they are going to lean over time nowaday modern skill figures they incorporate at least ABS into the PVC material to stiffen the material to make it harder and stronger some even at other materials yeah to prevent the figure from leaning especially in those standing on one leg right and that is why the material and chemical composition especially PVC is a lot lower in skills compared to nids and that is why nandroid and also fig Mas they have a higher risk of becoming oily sticky or yellowish compared to skill figures okay and speaking of sticky nandroid I do have an example over here this Nando is supposed to be the start of another video which I'm planning for I don't know when I'll publish it but it has something to do with cleaning anime figures right this Nando is definitely more than 10 years old I think it is as old as this Louis figure or maybe a bit younger so this thing is extremely sticky very yellowish you see the skin is very yellowish and very dusty the dust are all stuck on the figure so why am I so bad in taking care of my figures that this thing turn into something that that is relegated for the recycle beIN I think so why am I so bad in taking care of these figures uh actually I let this happen on purpose in the name of signs in the name of making content for anime figures I let this and another nandroid of mine turn into turn into a mess like this one so that I can make cleaning videos and other experiments videos using this as subjects later on right after all this is a very old neroid I think it cost me like 20 or $25 maximum so this is a small sacrifice for making content right not to mention I don't collect nandroid anymore this will be for another day far into the future and one last thing what about light right sunlight that can make figure turn yellow some people said that I have always known sunlight makes figure turn yellow but I never knew plasticizers do as well yeah regarding lights I have another video that discusses on this topic lighting is a separate topic alog together you can check out this video right up here on how light affects anime figures right so until then if you found this video to be helpful yeah please give this video a like and feel free to ask as many as questions down in the comments below until then please subscribe to this channel for more anime figure videos every week and I'll see you again very soon goodbye and have a nice day

Channel: EXkurogane Studio

Views: 40,891

Keywords: anime figure, figure review, figure unboxing, anime figure sweating, anime figure turned yellow

Id: KeqgKHyIIlM

Length: 25min 23sec (1523 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 11 2024